It’s a funny thing how a business built on selling scraps of metal could be such a testament of strength. In this case, it turned out to be much more than just a business. It’s the very foundation of two families’ deep friendship. It was this friendship — begun many years ago — that eventually led to the marriage of our friends Brittany and Tyler.

You see, their two families have been welded together (see what we did there) for a handful of decades. Both their fathers became partners in the scrap metal business and over the years since their families’ bond has been well, forged pretty strong. The respective children of the two families had always been friends but as they grew older it was inevitable a romance would arise. There was a moment when it clicked for then-teenage Brittany and Tyler, on a joint-family vacation to Tahiti. The talked and hung out endlessly that trip, their mutual interest growing as their relationship from family friends transmogrified into romantic interests. When they parted ways at the end of the summer for their respective colleges — it was clear that they wouldn’t be parted for long.

Though their families date back so much further, that was undoubtedly the beginning of their own path together. Some seven years later, Tyler got down on one knee and pulled a piece of stationary from his pocket. He read that poem to Brittany, asking her in so many words to be his bride. Those scraps of stationary were kept and framed along with the wine bottle they used to celebrate; that frame was on display, sitting on a nearby table when Tyler spoke his vows in October at Saddlerock Ranch in Malibu, fittingly another poem.

The details that so many worked on throughout (and for that matter, in the days leading up to) the big day were breathtaking. Shortly after the ceremony we overheard one of the guests in attendance — mesmerized by those same details we were — leaned over to the crowd of people next to him and chuckled, looking around in appreciation at the dozen tables filled with bouquets of flowers and the willow trees billowing with lights. He echoed the sentiment so many wondered with amazement that night, “Can you believe all this was built on scrap metal?”

We can think of nothing stronger on which to build a new marriage. And it really does make for a fairy tale like beginning to Brittany and Tyler’s life together: two families, two poems, a whole bunch of scrap metal and one very happy couple. They really are a couple scraps to each other (it was after all, their chosen hashtag). And we mean that as the highest of compliments.